Ann Arbor, MI – The Michigan Wolverines continued its unlikely Big Ten success last night without Caris Levert – this time soundly beating the Nebraska Cornhuskers 58-44. Nebraska’s Terran Petteway and Shavon Shields were held to a combined 21 points on 5-of-23 from the floor. The Huskers’ duo had been averaging 37 points and just last Saturday, Petteway who is averaging nearly 20 points, torched Michigan State for 32.
This effort follows a win at Rutgers and taking Wisconsin to overtime in the first two games following Levert’s season ending ankle injury. Adding to the storybook nature of the past week, the Wolverines also had to play without point guard Derrick Walton, who was held out with a bruised toe.
Following the “next man up” script perfectly, the Wolverines got a big performance from soph forward Zak Irvin, who achieved his first career double-double with 14 points and 12 rebounds. Irvin also uncharacteristically picked up three assists – as he is normally on the receiving end of a score.
Irvin was ably supported by senior center Max Bielfeldt who has spent most of his career as a 3rd string center. Bielfeldt almost had a double-double himself with 12 points and nine rebounds.
Other heroes were freshman wing Aubrey Dawkins who had 13 first half points as Michigan closed the first stanza up 23-18 and diminutive Spike Albrecht, who notched six points on a perfect 6-of-6 from the foul line and added seven assists.
Remarkably, Michigan outrebounded Nebraska 34-26 and had a 25-10 scoring run the last five minutes of the first half through the first five minutes of the 2nd half.
Michigan improved to 6-3 in the Big Ten and 13-8 overall and travels to arch-rival MSU on Super Bowl Sunday, while Nebraska falls to 4-4 and 12-8 and visits Minnesota on Saturday.
Don Sicko is a Correspondent and Scout for NetScouts Basketball. You can subscribe to our RSS feed from the upper right corner of our home page, follow us on Facebook, or on twitter.
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